This summer, the Georgia Tech Library’s retroTECH program will join top universities and museums in a groundbreaking effort to preserve culturally important computing through the Software Preservation Network.

The program, Fostering a Community of Practice: Software Preservation in Libraries and Archives, aims to empower librarians, archivists and curators to address the key challenges to providing long-term access to software-dependent cultural heritage. Work kicks off in June, with projects ending in November 2019.

For their part, the Tech Librarians will bring a new service, retroTECH Online, to fruition. It will offer an online emulation environment through which authenticated Georgia Tech users (as well as possibly researchers and visitors who create accounts) can utilize emulated software from retroTECH’s collections for teaching and learning, explore the stories surrounding that software, and foster a virtual community.

In the effort, retroTECH joins teams from the universities of Virginia, Arizona and Illinois, the Guggenheim Museum and the Living Computer Museum + Labs.